Goff salvage logging ‘a real challenge’

Representatives of the Klamath National Forest (KNF) met with the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors last week to apprise them of the status of lands burned by last summer’s 22,000-acre Goff Fire in north western Siskiyou County.

Representatives of the Klamath National Forest (KNF) met with the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors last week to apprise them of the status of lands burned by last summer’s 22,000-acre Goff Fire in north western Siskiyou County.

The fire burned from Aug. 5 through Sept. 10 and came within 100 feet of some homes and structures in the community of Seiad Valley. In spite of the size and duration of the fire, KNF personnel told the board that the areas of high intensity burn were primarily confined to the ridge tops and high elevation brush fields.

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing to happen to brush fields,” said KNF Supervisor Patty Grantham. She explained that nearly all of the lower elevation burning was lower intensity and, in most cases, did a good job of reducing forest fuel loads.

While the fire did back down the slopes above the town of Seiad Valley, she said it was a slow moving and low intensity area of the burn and involved almost no backburning. “We put very little fire on the ground ourselves,” said Grantham.

Supervisors Marcia Armstrong and Grace Bennett both expressed concerns about possible negative impacts to the area’s natural environment and the possibility that the county could be held responsible for detrimental impacts.

Grantham said a Burned Area Emergency Report was performed shortly after the fire. She said the assessment showed very little potential for severe long-term negative impacts.

KNF employee Dan Blessing told the board that during the heavy rains across the area in early December, there was some muddy runoff observed but it cleared up relatively quickly and no problems had been reported so far.

He said the forest service had replaced four undersized culverts as a preventative measure to avoid plugging in case heavy runoffs did occur.

“If we do see some problems there, will the forest service come forward and address that,” Armstrong asked.

“I guess that would depend on what the problem was,” replied Grantham. She said if there were issues of faulty KNF infrastructure or “something we missed,” the agency would deal with it.

Bennett said she was concerned that any excess sedimentation resulting from the fire may be considered to be a violation of the California Water Quality Control Board’s Klamath River Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) sedimentation regulations.

Blessing assured her that excessive sedimentation was not likely because of the overall low intensity of the burn. Bennett also asked if the Forest Service had any plans for salvage logging in the burned areas.

Grantham said a fuels reduction project is planned to bolster the existing buffer zone around the community of Seiad Valley but full scale salvage logging would be very difficult because most of the burned area was roadless and steep terrain that would require helicopter logging.

Page 2 of 2 - She said her agency has spoken to several helicopter companies and they are “more than reluctant” to fly over utility lines, homes and highways, all of which exist in the area. “So that’s a real challenge.” She added that the quality of burned timber degrades quickly. “So, we’re really trying to move this along. If there is a feasible project in there, our timeline is for the end of the summer to have something ready to go.”

Grantham had a lot of praise for the Seiad Fire Safe Council, saying she “could not overstate how important it was.” She said the fuel breaks the council had created around the community gave firefighters the ability to be patient, allowing the fire to back down the hill toward town without having to engage in risky backburning.

In addition, she said the fire safe council and local volunteer firefighters were very instrumental in monitoring, communication and actual firefighting operations.

Grantham said, “I just cannot thank them enough for what they did and I think it’s a real testimony to Seiad to have their act together to that degree. Those organizations were in place and they were really very helpful. It made all the difference.”

Unfortunately, she added that “decisions have been made at the national level” to decrease the amount of federal funding that goes into fuels reduction work.

The board and KNF representatives discussed several possible strategies for sharing information and resources to seek more funding for fuels reduction work in the future.